Cell Phones

Alcatel Verso Review of Pros And Cons

- Analysis by KJ David

Released as part of Cricket Wireless's 2018 prepaid catalog, the Alcatel Verso is one of the carrier's lowest-priced Androids, although we won't say that its assortment of pros and cons is totally dull just yet.

Still, with a wallet-friendly initial price tag of only $29.99 , the Verso suffers from a bevy of antiquated specs, which include a measly 5-megapixel HD-720p-video-recording primary camera and an even-more-unpleasant 2-megapixel-only front-facing camera that easily gets bullied by the frontal cameras rocked by some selfie-driven smartphones released around roughly the same time -- feel free to check those phones out in our best selfie smartphones list, by the way. Another significant setback is its 2050mAh battery capacity , which no longer sounds that impressive, even for an entry-level device, especially since some of its competitors have power capacities that go as high as 2500mAh.

Despite settling for a low-caliber 5-inch FWVGA (854 x 480) screen , the Verso enjoys a scratch- and crack-resistant Dragontrail Glass finish (Don't miss our list of the phones with best screens here). Its pros also include a hefty (in this Android class) 16GB memory coupled with an up-to-128GB microSD card support . In comparison, a lot of starter-class smartphones settle for 8GB-only native storage caps and support only 32GB memory cards.

The Verso's other perks include 4G LTE web browsing as well as HD voice support , the former being a pretty significant deal in this market segment, while the latter, which promises to enhance overall call audio quality, is quite popular among budget smartphones. Under the hood, the Verso is powered by a mediocre 1.1GHz quad-core processor tied together with 2GB of RAM , which sounds respectable, coming from a sub-$30 device. An M3/T3 hearing aid rating and the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system top off its pros and cons.

In review, although the Alcatel Verso houses some near-outmoded cons, it nevertheless serves entry-level smartphone shoppers looking for a 4G-ready introductory Android that won't break the bank.